It's a miracle

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

I finished something! And oh my god they're not socks!

What: Tunic sweater avec turtleneck, pattern is my own
Yarn: Malabrigo worsted in Azul Profundo #150, less than 3.5 skeins
Needles: US8 and 7 circulars and dpn's

There's this sweater I got for cheaps at H&M that I have been wearing to the ground. It's black, made of soft squishy acrylic, the length of which hits just past the hips. It's body-hugging and has a large cowl-neck that could be stretched and draped over both shoulders, revealing the collarbone, or slouched just to one side, revealing just a tantalizing snippet of a neck. It is a totally simple sweater but when I wear it, I feel like if I opened my mouth to speak my voice would be husky, I might even purr, and everything I said would be witty and charming because it would also be in French.

My version of that sweater is a little less Euro and a lot more...BLUE. I cannot tell you how intense the blue really is. I used just over 3 skeins of Malabrigo and it turns out they were all pretty much consistent in color, except for that one lone skein which of course appears smack dab in the middle of the sweater. Whatever. I'm fine with it.

Because I didn't follow a pattern and I wanted it to fit a certain way, I actually swatched before starting this sweater. This is a first. I never swatch. I get lazy. Most of the time it works out, sometimes it doesn't. But in true me fashion, I've misplaced all my algebraic scribbling and notes so I can't tell you the gauge I came up with. It wasn't rocket science anyways. Basically I wanted a sweater that was about 30 inches around, using US8 needles. I also put in waist shaping in the form of darts: instead of decreasing/increasing at the end of each side, I did it about 2 inches in from each side.

I yoked the upper body part: when reaching the armpits, I bound of maybe 10 stitches for the armpits on each side, set the body aside and started knitting the sleeves separately, in the round on US7 dpns. When I was satisfied with the length (up to armpit), I bound off for the armpit and joined the sleeves with the body, and continued in the round. Standard yoke stuff. Decreased every other row for raglan sleeves, and then continued in the round for the turtleneck. This was supposed to be a cowlneck but I had decreased too much, so a turtleneck it was.